Swiggy partners with Prime Minister’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi Scheme to bring over 36K street food vendors online
This follows a successful pilot that Swiggy initiated with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in the cities of Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi, and Indore, through which Swiggy has already onboarded over 300 street vendors on its platform.
has announced the expansion of its Street Food Vendors programme to 125 cities under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme. This follows a successful pilot that Swiggy initiated with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in the cities of Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi, and Indore, through which Swiggy has already onboarded over 300 street vendors on its platform.
Swiggy has created a special destination on the app where consumers can discover their favourite street food vendors. At the time of onboarding, all vendors are registered with FSSAI. Swiggy will then facilitate a Food Safety Training and Certification (FOSTAC) in partnership with FSSAI and their empanelled partners.
The SVANidhi Scheme has received loan applications from a whopping 1.47 lakh street food vendors so far. From these, in the first phase alone, Swiggy will onboard 36,000 vendors to whom the loan has been disbursed in 125 cities, which Swiggy dubs as potentially the largest of its kind initiative by Swiggy and MoHUA not just in India, but globally.
Founders of Swiggy (L-R - Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini and Sriharsha Majety)
Swiggy said that it has created a dedicated team to continuously explore and identify iconic, popular, and proven-safe street vendors on the platform. As a practice, all PM SVANidhi Scheme street food vendors must undergo a three-stage training programme before being onboarded. After the training and registration, all vendors are required to do a self-audit and demonstrate the standards they abide by. These standards are modelled on the lines of FSSAI’s guidelines to ensure that essential hygienic practices are observed.
Besides this, Swiggy also conducts virtual one-on-one training and takes them through the process of accepting, preparing, and fulfilling orders on the platform without compromising on consumer experience.
By updating the Swiggy app, customers in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi can easily find “Street Vendor” under the restaurant category. The app homepage also has banners that lead users directly to a range of street vendor listings.
“Even as we go through more stages of Unlock, there has been a long-term change in consumer behaviour regarding continued social distancing and heightened demand for online services like food delivery. As a platform committed to bringing the widest choice of food to the doorsteps of consumers safely and hygienically, we’re delighted to bring them their favourite street food which they have been missing for many months now,” said Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy.
“More importantly, street vendors are integral to the food culture in India and we thank the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for giving Swiggy the opportunity to do our bit to help them adapt to the ‘new normal’ and embrace and thrive in the digital economy,” he added.
Edited by Kanishk Singh